


Scars

by maxinehazel



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Blood, Catra (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Cutting, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Past Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Scars, Self-Harm, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxinehazel/pseuds/maxinehazel
Summary: One night while travelling to their next mission, Adora asks Catra swap stories about how they got their scars.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 78





	1. Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Season 5 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

This was Adora’s favorite part of every mission. Sure, the punching things part was always fun (although to be fair there was less and of that these days) and very little could top the looks on the faces of people who have been newly freed from the Horde’s occupation. But this could. Lying in their bed (not too soft, Catra hasn’t completely gotten used to non-horde mattresses yet) in the vast expanse of space, being together. Making up for the years fighting. Relearning each other’s bodies in ways they never had allowed themselves to before. 

Adora’s arms wrapped around Catra almost entirely, and her face was pressed into her back. She kissed Catra lightly on the shoulder blade, once and twice, before her lips brushed a raised bit of skin she hadn’t noticed before. Adora loved finding new parts of Catra she hadn’t seen before.

Curious, she pulled back to get a better look. There was just enough light coming in from the window (the window that Entrapta had installed in their cabin without consulting them first and that still made her very nervous but she tried not to think about that too much. Who puts a window in a spaceship?) that she could just see that yes, there was a thin scar right at the top of her shoulder.

“I didn’t know you had a scar back here,” Adora said, brightly, just now noticing there were also a couple more on either side of the one she originally discovered. Kind of like someone scratched Catra with a fork or something.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah I guess I do.” Catra mumbled. She had just been about to fall asleep too. Reflexively, Catra moved her hand over her shoulder to touch the scars and it was only then that Adora realized.

“Oh that’s weird,” she laughed softly, “the spacing between these scars are the same as your fingers-oh.” Catra tensed her fingers, raking the tips of them perfectly along the scars. 

“You are such an idiot,” Catra said but clearly her heart wasn’t in it.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize,” an awkward pause, “do you...want to talk about it?”

\---

Catra sprinted, on all fours, down a hallway in the Fright Zone. Her eyes were pressed closed, so hard it almost stung. It was the only way to keep the tears from coming out. If Shadow Weaver saw her cry, or worse, if Adora saw her cry...no, she wouldn’t let that happen.

Even with her eyes closed, she still knew how to get back to the bunks. She dove under Adora’s bunk and curled up tight, hands pressed over her eyes. Here, in relative safety (whatever that word means) she let herself start to cry.

Why couldn’t she be better? Why wasn’t she ever good enough? Why did Shadow Weaver hate her? The thoughts spiraled and she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Catra hugged herself, pressing her face into her arm. Hands gripped where her shoulder met her neck, she flexed instinctively and extended her claws. She felt the pain immediately, the blood a second later starting to drip down her back. She sucked in air quickly but didn’t move. The heat from the cuts became the only thing she could think about. It was just so...much, so strong, so enveloping, so warm.

Why had she done that? She’d never done that before. She had cut other people, plenty of times, but never herself. She guessed that now she knew how it felt.

Catra realized that she had stopped thinking about Shadow Weaver. She had stopped crying. Her thoughts had calmed, briefly, but calmed. She felt her heart start to beat faster again, her breath speeding up again. She shut her eyes, dug deeper into her skin, and pulled her hand across and away from her shoulder, blood on the end of her claws dripping onto the floor and down her fingers. Her own blood. She thought, off-handedly, that it looked just like Adora’s. Guess they weren’t all that different. 

Catra closed her eyes and breathed in deep through her nose. That’s better. She felt like herself again. Calm, in control. No more crying. She was too strong for that. Clean up the blood before Adora got back. Definitely didn’t want to have that conversation.

She stole a towel and some bandages from Kyle’s locker and after covering the cuts on her back, mopped up the blood from the floor. She sighed and flopped down on Adora’s bunk (face down to avoid messing with her cuts) and waited for the dummy to get back so they could take a nap or something.


	2. Abdomen and Thumb

When Catra finished, she gave a little shrug and a half smile. 

“And that's how that happened I guess.” Adora looked at her not entirely sure how to respond. Her heart broke thinking about Catra hurting herself like that.

Catra, wanting to avoid more awkward conversations about “feelings” that Adora loved so much for some reason (Catra blamed Bow for that) moved on quickly. 

“Okay well your turn now,” Catra pounced on Adora and felt around for any visible scars.

“How about this one,” she touched a diagonal scar across Adora’s lower abdomen, “How’d you get it?”

“Oh, that?” Adora forced out a laugh. “Oh that was nothing. This one time, Mermista let me try out her skateboard and it slipped right out from under me and I fell off.”

Catra laughed, enjoying the mental image of Adora eating shit, “Okay, but then how did you get that scar?”

“I landed on my sword?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not?”

“Adora, I know I say this a lot, but you really are an idiot.” 

“I know.” Adora sighed and hung her head.

Catra rolled her eyes, “but you are my idiot I guess,” and kissed her. Which as usual cheered Adora right up.

“Okay! Well! You tell me your most embarrassing scar story, so we are even at least.”

“Psht, none of my scars are embarrassing. I got them all from fighting Princesses” Catra said, with pride and mock derision.

“Oh ha ha, yes we all know how fierce you are.” It was Adora’s turn to roll her eyes, although without Catra’s practiced finesse. “I already know your most embarrassing scar story, I was there!” 

\---

It was a couple years after the end of the war and the Princess Alliance was reunited at Brightmoon. Though they were normally spread out on their various missions; Mermista and Seahawk were busy rebuilding Salineas, Entrapta and the Hordaks were off on Beast Island doing...science or something, and Perfuma and Scorpia were in the Kingdom Formerly Known as The Fright Zone, they tried to get everyone together semi-regularly.

This time it was Bow and Glimmer’s turn to host and Glimmer was hell-bent on there being cake. So Glimmer and Catra were in the kitchen working on food prep.

“Wait, how does this thing work and more importantly, why am I the one who needs to do this?” Catra held up the weird box thing away from her at arm’s length by two fingers as if it was one of Entrapta’s inventions, bound to explode at any minute.

“It’s a grater silly, you use it to—you know—grate stuff!” Glimmer said over her shoulder, “Haven’t you used one before?”

“Um, no. All we ate in the Horde were ration bars and well, Adora and I don't really cook much, It doesn’t end well.” Catra’s ears flattened in embarrassment, “Why can’t I cut stuff instead? I kinda have that down.”

“Oh stop whining, it's easy, you just rub that cinnamon across the holes, you will figure it out.” Glimmer waved her hand dismissing Catra and turned her attention to the batter she was supervising.

Catra grumbled and skeptically picked up the sticks of cinnamon from the counter and started running it across the grater. When some successfully grated cinnamon started to pile up, Catra thought that oh, this wasn’t so hard. She didn’t know what she was getting worked up about earlier. She can probably get all this cinnamon grated in like a couple minutes and then go slack off and bug Adora, no problem. She was just starting to really go to town on the cinnamon when she began grating part of her thumb.

Catra—in this order—yelped, aggressively dropped the grater and cinnamon, then hissed at it.

“Catra!?” Adora ran into the room after hearing Catra yell, “Are you okay? What’s happening?”

“This thing bit me!!” Catra said around her thumb which she had stuck in her mouth to try and slow the bleeding.

“Something is attacking you!? I got this,” Adora summoned her sword, “FOR THE HONOR OF GR—” 

“Adora stop! We aren’t under attack, calm down,” Glimmer was able to tell that her kitchen was about to become She-Ra’s latest victim, “Catra just cut her thumb, happens all the time to Bow. It's fine, everyone relax.”

“Oh,” Adora’s face noticeably fell. She was still holding her sword aloft, “So something isn’t attacking my girlfriend?”

“Only some stupid kitchen utensils” Catra hadn’t taken her gaze (which was admittedly withering) off the offending grater.

“I’ll go get some bandages.” Glimmer groaned. She rolled her eyes and left to go get said badnages.

\---

“That never happened,” Catra insisted flatly.

“Yes it totally did!” Adora laughed at her wife’s visible discomfort, “and I can prove it. Here give me your thumb, I know you still have the scar.”

Adora grabbed at Catra’s hand and she yelped (the high pitched half squeak that Adora always found so cute) and tried, unsuccessfully, to wriggle away.


End file.
